From behind the counter of the guildhall, a brown-haired woman stood diligently as she handled paperwork on the desk. Whilst doing so, she heard footsteps drawing near to her, quickly she looked up to see Fei and Damian approaching.
"Oh? Fei, you've arrived! Finally learnt how to read a watch, huh?" The woman teased. "You're really late you know that?"
"Ahh! It's not my fault no one woke me up!" Fei pouted. "Besides, I'm here now aren't I?"
"Yeah, after an hour of sleeping in..." Damian sighed.
"Like I said, no one woke me up!" She glared at Damian as she turned away from him, quickly facing the woman. "Ahem... anyways! Are Balmar and the others not in today?"
"Balmar? Ah, he's currently out on some guild duties, so he won't be here during your guild exam," she replied. "Though he's coming back in the evening, so there's that."
"Oh! So he's out? Hmm... is that why there's so much paperwork on the desk right now?" Fei pointed to the stacks of paper on the counter.
"Unfortunately so. I'm doing all of Balmar's duties including my own, so my plate's full as it is," she helplessly shook her head. "Though, it can't be helped seeing as this guy keeps procrastinating on doing them."
"Balmar, Balmar..." Orelia shook her head. "Leaving all the work for poor Aina? He'll need to get a good earful from me later!"
Aina, a member of the Yumin guild branch. She usually tackles on the task of handling most, if not all things related to job submissions from clients who are in need of help from the guild rankers. At times, organizing the jobs by rank and making sure everything runs as smooth as possible for the members of the guildhall.
"Aha, now, now, Miss Orelia, even if you do give him an earful, he'll just go back to procrastinating thereafter."
"Hmm, you're right. Although he avoids all things related to paperwork... he still does have a lot of things on his plate outside of that, and he completes them accordingly, so I'll let him off this time!" She chuckled. "But, Fei on the other hand... she won't be seeing daylight again if she fails this exam."
"Ack! Orelia! I will pass! I w-will... so um... don't kill me!" Fei cried out.
"Good, good!" Orelia smiled. "Now, Aina, would you please give the job form?"
"Sure thing~ It's somewhere around here..." Searching through the piles of paper on the desk, she took out two sheets of paper. Soon after, she quickly gave it to Fei and Damian respectively.
"Huh? What's this?" Receiving the paper from Aina, Damian began to inspect it. "This is a job form?"
"Yep~" Aina nodded her head. "For your exam, you both will be doing a guild job for a client, easy right?"
"Ah? A job? What is it?!" Upon hearing the word 'job' from Aina, excitement shone within the eyes of Fei as she immediately took a glance at the form.
[ Guild Job (F) - Mana Core Collection ]
Client: Click & Clunk Workshop.
We're in need of some mana cores from the monsters in Yumin Forest, would you please help collect 10 of them for us? The cores can be of the low-grade to intermediate grade, though we prefer if you can get the higher graded ones!
Objective: Obtain 10 mana cores in Yumin Forest.
Reward: A surprise :)
"...this is the exam?" Damian raised his brow in suspicion as he read through the description written on the form. "I expected it to be more... combat-heavy based?"
"Oh? Did you expect you'd be going up against one of the guild rankers or fighting a huge monster on bounty?" Aina tilted her head.
"Yeah, sort of. I was expecting something like that from what Xander told us previously."
"Yeah!" Fei nodded her head. "If not that... I expected it to be an A-rank job or something!"
"My... you two are saying as if the exams are incredibly hard, you're overestimating the exams too much you know!" Orelia said.
"Eh?! We are?!" Fei shouted out.
"Mhm. You see, the guild exam works differently in different areas of the country. Some are like as you said earlier, tasked to defeat a mob or a guild ranker one on one, but it's not always like that," Orelia explained. "In the urban towns such as Yumin, we give out more lenient exams unlike the ones in the capital which Xander took."
"Oh! But... why aren't all the exams the same?" Fei questioned. "And why did Xander take the exam in the capital?"
"Well, the exam depends on the guildhall, really," Orelia shrugged. "If we need be, we could've made your exam much harder, but, since you've already completed your training, the difficulty doesn't really matter. All that's left is for you two to formally become guild rankers."
"Ah, I see... so that's how the exam work?" Damian nodded his head. "Then, I take it the reason why Xander took the one in the capital was because of that 'incident'?"
"Yes," Orelia solemnly said. "Ahem! Anyways, we shouldn't be wasting time anymore. If it was the exams in the capital, you both would have lost the opportunity to be guild rankers by now!"
"Ack- Right, right, so all we gotta is just finish this job and done?" Fei asked.
"Yes, that's all. Give the ten mana cores over to Harry once you've collected them and then come back here and turn in the job for completion," Aina said happily as she raised both her thumbs. "Now, good luck you two! This is easy for you right? So make sure to pass!"
"Right, thank you, Aina! We'll pass for sure!"
"Alright, you two best be on your way now! I'll mark you two as fail if you waste time any longer!" Orelia shouted out. "Make sure you've got everything ready!"
"Right, right! Then we'll be going now...!" Fei nodded her head in excitement as she began to make her way to the exit. "Let's go, Damian! We're finally on our way to becoming guild rankers!"
"Right." Nodding his head with a smile, Damian followed behind Fei.